Miracle of the Shroud / Blood on the shroud

[Alex Cured]

So why does the hair in the Shroud image fall down to the shoulders? Was Jesus buried standing up?

yes... you know, it's almost as though the image was painted by someone who didn't think of that.

 

[Dinwar]

Frankly I am growing weary of continually going to the time and trouble of checking these things and writing detailed replies for you (Jabba) when it’s crystal clear that you never bother to read anything except your own links to fanatical Christian shroud websites, from which you merely take 30 seconds to cut-&-paste a link suggesting we read their barking mad and blatantly dishonest shroud propaganda.

The rest of us appreciate it, though.

 

[pakeha]

^^^
Yes, very much indeed.

 

[Garrette]

Add another appreciative lurker.

 

[Jabba]

Your Reservations

- Just to point out, pp13-15 is just the beginning of Heimberger’s arguments.
- Also, as I understand his position, Rogers is NOT claiming that the area being carbon dated IS the product of invisible reweaving – he’s CLAIMING, instead, that this area is not representative of the larger cloth, but that his best guess as to an explanation is invisible reweaving…


- Otherwise, as best I can figure, the following are your reservations TO the part of Heimberger’s evidence/argument to which I referred – or, simply your reservations posted SINCE I referred to that part of Heimberger's evidence/argument.

1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
2) We have A LOT OF REAL evidence that there was no patch -- you have NO REAL evidence that there was.
3) You need to provide evidence from the artifact itself that the artifact itself was not being dated.
4) In order that you be correct about this stuff, you need to assume that
4.1) 20 Vatican officials were lying.
4.2) The video was faked.
4.3) The scientists who dated the Shroud were lying.
4.5) The people who did any repair work, who saw the shroud, or who interacted with it in any way would have to either be too stupid to notice that a patch had been added, or they'd have to be lying.
4.6) The lab that did the trace chemical analysis on the C14 sample would have to be lying.
4.7) Or the single greatest fraud in history would have had to have been perpetrated at a time when the technology to know that such things as "water trace chemistry" existed wasn't available.
5) Even if you're right you've got a long uphill slog before you can prove that this is the actual shroud Jesus was buried in.
6) You have to prove that the image was put there via some supernatural means--which means that you'll have to demonstrate that the supernatural exists.
7) You'll also have to explain why the shroud doesn't follow the biblical description of the burial (again, the head-cloth wasn't near the body).
8) If any single bit of data here is missing, the BEST conclusion we can draw (from the perspective of someone who wants to believe) is "We don't know".
9) Why do you assume that a few hundred people are lying, but one man (Rogers) isn't?
10) Do you believe that you can prove the rest of the chain of reasoning?
11) Why do you think it's so important that the shroud be something other than a facinating Medieval artifact?
12) So this is it? There MUST be an invisibly woven patch because Rogers affirms it?
And we can't perceive it because it's...invisible?
13) So.....in the 16th Century they knew how to weave fibers together such that any patch would be invisible? Is there any historical documentation of this being done on any other artifact?
14) Not only that, but they had (prior to the discovery of many modern elements) the technology to replicate the aqueous trace elements of a 1st century stream, and took the time to wash their threads in it.
15) If that was the place they put in a patch, then why did they not fill in that entire corner of the Shroud?
16) if the shroud really was from the time of Jesus, the carbon 14 atoms present would average out in the test sample to 700CE.
17) The evidence for this patch is two threads from a sample that were handed to Rogers - even though none of the labs knew which sample was from the shroud.
18) And then Rogers was able to examine these threads more expertly than one of the world's best forensic microscopists.
19) The shroudies have no evidence of any of this, except their own opinions and beliefs,
20) But then claim that non-shroudies are biased or closed-minded.
21) Shroudies don’t believe that anyone today has the ability to reproduce the shroud (factually incorrect, as demonstrated earlier in this thread), yet to
22) Maintaining the "invisible patch" idea, he has to believe that 14th century restorers were capable of a feat much more complicated-- interweaving fibers from different pieces of cloth in such exquisite precision that the work can't be detected even under microscopic scrutiny.
23) Heimberger himself told us that he has been interested in the shroud for over 20 years, and even has his own website of the shroud. That immediately puts him in the same bracket as members of STURP (such as Ray Rogers, and Barrie Schwortz), all of whom are overwhelmingly likely to be Christian shroud fanatics.
24) And that is about as far from being independent and unbiased in their views as it's possible to get.
25) Heimberger is not a scientist. He is, so he tells us, a medical doctor. That, however, does not necessarily imply any particular scientific expertise in the sense of relevant research.
26) Although you already said that in that link you believe Heimberger "won" an argument with Antonnacii and as you said "he had the last word"
27), it is very clear that in his first reply Antonacci was able to conclusively refute every objection raised by Heimberger, and he did that in detail and at length.
28) The fact that Antonacci decided not to reply further to Heimbergers second email, was entirely consistent with the fact that Heimberger’s second email was merely repeating what he'd just said in his first email, except in even more vague and generalised language
29) So there was no need for Antonaacci to continue that conversation with further replies, because he had already explained in detail to Heimberger why Heimberger was decidedly mistaken on every single point.
30) Most of Heimberger’s complaints amount to vague generalisations of saying that he actually agrees with Antonacci’s criticisms,
31) But he nevertheless believes that
31.1) All sorts of things might be possible - such as,
31.1.1) Believing that it might have been possible to make an invisible weave, and
31.1.2) Believing that Rogers might have detected some evidence of that which had been missed by everyone else, and
31.1.3) Believing that although the crucial temperatures had been omitted from Rogers Mass Spec. plots (all of which were old unused results of much earlier STURP experiments), that Rogers had explained that by … wait for it … admitting on page 5 of his paper that he could not find the crucial temperatures from those old plots!
32) Heimberger also admitted that Antonnacci was right to criticise Rogers vanillin tests as invalid.
33) And those vanillin tests were actually the central issue in Rogers paper!
34) Heimberger then further agreed with Antonacci that it was absurd for Rogers to have assumed that during the fire of 1532 the temperature of the shroud would not have risen above 20C to 25C.
35) And further, that if the temperature in that fire had been greater than 20-25C then Rogers estimated vanillin dates would have been totally different!
36) Even it the shroud could somehow be proven to be the burial shroud of one Yeshua Ben Yosef, it does nothing to prove the divinity of said dead guy.
37) So why does the hair in the Shroud image fall down to the shoulders? Was Jesus buried standing up?

- I'll start off by giving my answer to #1.
- If you don't have any questions or reservations to that answer (Yeah, right!), I'll give my answer to #2 --unless you guys can somehow come to something of a consensus as to a different path to take.
- If you do have questions or reservations to my first answer, I'll feel obliged to respond to one of those next; etc...
- Talk to ya soon.

--- Jabba

 

[dafydd]

- Just to point out, pp13-15 is just the beginning of Heimberger’s arguments.
- Also, as I understand his position, Rogers is NOT claiming that the area being carbon dated IS the product of invisible reweaving – he’s CLAIMING, instead, that this area is not representative of the larger cloth, but that his best guess as to an explanation is invisible reweaving…


- Otherwise, as best I can figure, the following are your reservations TO the part of Heimberger’s evidence/argument to which I referred – or, simply your reservations posted SINCE I referred to that part of Heimberger's evidence/argument.

1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
2) We have A LOT OF REAL evidence that there was no patch -- you have NO REAL evidence that there was.
3) You need to provide evidence from the artifact itself that the artifact itself was not being dated.
4) In order that you be correct about this stuff, you need to assume that
4.1) 20 Vatican officials were lying.
4.2) The video was faked.
4.3) The scientists who dated the Shroud were lying.
4.5) The people who did any repair work, who saw the shroud, or who interacted with it in any way would have to either be too stupid to notice that a patch had been added, or they'd have to be lying.
4.6) The lab that did the trace chemical analysis on the C14 sample would have to be lying.
4.7) Or the single greatest fraud in history would have had to have been perpetrated at a time when the technology to know that such things as "water trace chemistry" existed wasn't available.
5) Even if you're right you've got a long uphill slog before you can prove that this is the actual shroud Jesus was buried in.
6) You have to prove that the image was put there via some supernatural means--which means that you'll have to demonstrate that the supernatural exists.
7) You'll also have to explain why the shroud doesn't follow the biblical description of the burial (again, the head-cloth wasn't near the body).
8) If any single bit of data here is missing, the BEST conclusion we can draw (from the perspective of someone who wants to believe) is "We don't know".
9) Why do you assume that a few hundred people are lying, but one man (Rogers) isn't?
10) Do you believe that you can prove the rest of the chain of reasoning?
11) Why do you think it's so important that the shroud be something other than a facinating Medieval artifact?
12) So this is it? There MUST be an invisibly woven patch because Rogers affirms it?
And we can't perceive it because it's...invisible?
13) So.....in the 16th Century they knew how to weave fibers together such that any patch would be invisible? Is there any historical documentation of this being done on any other artifact?
14) Not only that, but they had (prior to the discovery of many modern elements) the technology to replicate the aqueous trace elements of a 1st century stream, and took the time to wash their threads in it.
15) If that was the place they put in a patch, then why did they not fill in that entire corner of the Shroud?
16) if the shroud really was from the time of Jesus, the carbon 14 atoms present would average out in the test sample to 700CE.
17) The evidence for this patch is two threads from a sample that were handed to Rogers - even though none of the labs knew which sample was from the shroud.
18) And then Rogers was able to examine these threads more expertly than one of the world's best forensic microscopists.
19) The shroudies have no evidence of any of this, except their own opinions and beliefs,
20) But then claim that non-shroudies are biased or closed-minded.
21) Shroudies don’t believe that anyone today has the ability to reproduce the shroud (factually incorrect, as demonstrated earlier in this thread), yet to
22) Maintaining the "invisible patch" idea, he has to believe that 14th century restorers were capable of a feat much more complicated-- interweaving fibers from different pieces of cloth in such exquisite precision that the work can't be detected even under microscopic scrutiny.
23) Heimberger himself told us that he has been interested in the shroud for over 20 years, and even has his own website of the shroud. That immediately puts him in the same bracket as members of STURP (such as Ray Rogers, and Barrie Schwortz), all of whom are overwhelmingly likely to be Christian shroud fanatics.
24) And that is about as far from being independent and unbiased in their views as it's possible to get.
25) Heimberger is not a scientist. He is, so he tells us, a medical doctor. That, however, does not necessarily imply any particular scientific expertise in the sense of relevant research.
26) Although you already said that in that link you believe Heimberger "won" an argument with Antonnacii and as you said "he had the last word"
27), it is very clear that in his first reply Antonacci was able to conclusively refute every objection raised by Heimberger, and he did that in detail and at length.
28) The fact that Antonacci decided not to reply further to Heimbergers second email, was entirely consistent with the fact that Heimberger’s second email was merely repeating what he'd just said in his first email, except in even more vague and generalised language
29) So there was no need for Antonaacci to continue that conversation with further replies, because he had already explained in detail to Heimberger why Heimberger was decidedly mistaken on every single point.
30) Most of Heimberger’s complaints amount to vague generalisations of saying that he actually agrees with Antonacci’s criticisms,
31) But he nevertheless believes that
31.1) All sorts of things might be possible - such as,
31.1.1) Believing that it might have been possible to make an invisible weave, and
31.1.2) Believing that Rogers might have detected some evidence of that which had been missed by everyone else, and
31.1.3) Believing that although the crucial temperatures had been omitted from Rogers Mass Spec. plots (all of which were old unused results of much earlier STURP experiments), that Rogers had explained that by … wait for it … admitting on page 5 of his paper that he could not find the crucial temperatures from those old plots!
32) Heimberger also admitted that Antonnacci was right to criticise Rogers vanillin tests as invalid.
33) And those vanillin tests were actually the central issue in Rogers paper!
34) Heimberger then further agreed with Antonacci that it was absurd for Rogers to have assumed that during the fire of 1532 the temperature of the shroud would not have risen above 20C to 25C.
35) And further, that if the temperature in that fire had been greater than 20-25C then Rogers estimated vanillin dates would have been totally different!
36) Even it the shroud could somehow be proven to be the burial shroud of one Yeshua Ben Yosef, it does nothing to prove the divinity of said dead guy.
37) So why does the hair in the Shroud image fall down to the shoulders? Was Jesus buried standing up?

- I'll start off by giving my answer to #1.
- If you don't have any questions or reservations to that answer (Yeah, right!), I'll give my answer to #2 --unless you guys can somehow come to something of a consensus as to a different path to take.
- If you do have questions or reservations to my first answer, I'll feel obliged to respond to one of those next; etc...
- Talk to ya soon.

--- Jabba

I'm not surprised that you are are avoiding question number 37. Off you go to scour shroudie believer sites to find a fatuous answer to that one.

 

[Dinwar]

5) Even if you're right you've got a long uphill slog before you can prove that this is the actual shroud Jesus was buried in.
6) You have to prove that the image was put there via some supernatural means--which means that you'll have to demonstrate that the supernatural exists.
7) You'll also have to explain why the shroud doesn't follow the biblical description of the burial (again, the head-cloth wasn't near the body).
8) If any single bit of data here is missing, the BEST conclusion we can draw (from the perspective of someone who wants to believe) is "We don't know".
9) Why do you assume that a few hundred people are lying, but one man (Rogers) isn't?
10) Do you believe that you can prove the rest of the chain of reasoning?

This sequence is where I stopped reading. It makes it obvious that you haven't thought about what I actually wrote, but merely copied and pasted what I said (without attributing it, by the way, which is generally considered bad form). #5 isn't an objection--it's an evaluation of my objections, and as such should be ignored by you during your "I'll answer your questions" phase. And #8 is basic logic, something that's impossible to refute while using logic.

Further, this is nothing more than you saying what you'll do. Don't tell us what you'll do; DO IT.

 

[Alex Cured]

wow...

I thought 845 posts (and counting) over this nonsense was quite amazing but Jabba seems to have a plan to drag this out till the next ice age.

and let me guess what post #999999 will look like ...

 

[dafydd]

wow...

I thought 845 posts (and counting) over this nonsense was quite amazing but Jabba seems to have a plan to drag this out till the next ice age.

and let me guess what post #999999 will look like ...

He'll still be telling us what he is going to do.

 

[Alex Cured]

Seeking evidence for faith is pointless for when you have evidence you have knowledge not faith.


King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

tsig,
- You're wrong. Hopefully, we can get back to that issue later.
--- Jabba

Look. You missed one.

 

[Alex Cured]

He'll still be telling us what he is going to do.

Give the man a cee-gar

 

[pakeha]

It's worse than that, far worse.
After all that been quantified in that list, Jabba will go back to quoting obituaries.

1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar. ...
- I'll start off by giving my answer to #1.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

So why does the hair in the Shroud image fall down to the shoulders? Was Jesus buried standing up?

Gravity from the black hole, silly.

 

[Jabba]

Rogers a liar?

- So anyway,
1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
- Early on, that seemed to me your (you guys') major reason for dismissing Rogers' paper. You guys didn't believe that Gonella supplied Rogers with the samples that Rogers claimed that Gonella did.
- I looked around and found what seemed to me good reason for believing that Rogers was telling the truth -- basically, no good reason for believing that he wasn't.
- And as I recall, there was no substantial argument about that after I presented my case...
- If you think there was, let me know.
--- Jabba
P.S. Unless I'm redirected, I'll try to answer #2 next.

 

[Dinwar]

After all that been quantified in that list, Jabba will go back to quoting obituaries.

Well, if he can adequately address why Rogers' integrity should even be considered, I'd count that as a win. At least it's something, you know?

- Early on, that seemed to me your (you guys') major reason for dismissing Rogers' paper. You guys didn't believe that Gonella supplied Rogers with the samples that Rogers claimed that Gonella did.

No. We've dismissed it because it's wrong. You don't have to be a liar to be wrong--Einstein published more retractions than many scientist publish papers, after all.

- I looked around and found what seemed to me good reason for believing that Rogers was telling the truth -- basically, no good reason for believing that he wasn't.

Really? The fact that he made up the whole "invisible patch" thing didn't set off alarm bells? I'd say your bologna meter needs re-calibrated. This is a classic example of "God of the Gaps" reasoning.

Besides, it doesn't matter at all. Rogers could honestly believe everything he's said AND STILL BE WRONG. That's the part you don't seem to get, and it's a critical failure of your argument: to whit, you are focusing on something that's a non-issue, at the expense of the actual argument. It's called the Red Herring Fallacy, as I've pointed out before.

- And as I recall, there was no substantial argument about that after I presented my case...
- If you think there was, let me know.

This is a trap. Again, Rogers' honest isn't the issue here--the truth of his statements (which is independant of what he believes the truth to be) is the issue.

 

[pakeha]

^^^
Jabba doesn't see beyond this point, does he?

- So anyway,
1) The issue isn't whether or not Rodgers is a liar.
...- I looked around and found what seemed to me good reason for believing that Rogers was telling the truth ...
P.S. Unless I'm redirected, I'll try to answer #2 next.

You're going back to repeating the obituaries?
That's all you have?
That's really it?

I hope I'm wrong and you'll post something meaningful on the subject.

 

[Ladewig]

P.S. Unless I'm redirected, I'll try to answer #2 next.

I am not looking for redirection, I just want to understand what is happening.

A) you sincerely believe that you have thorough answers for every item on that list?

B) there is no item or combination of items on that list that make you even begin to consider the possibility of the inauthenticity of the Shroud?

C) if we are looking for a comprehensive list I am very confident we can add seven or eight points about the scale and dimensions. Would you like us to add those items to the list now or would you prefer to wait until the first 37 items are resolved?

ETA
D) did you leave the ability to reproduce the Shroud using ancient techniques off the list because you believe you have already proven that it is not reproduceable?

E) have you considered the possibility of inviting your fellow believers to come here to help you?


MORE ETA:
again this is not meant to derail your plan. These are just five yes/no questions which you can answer off the top of your head (no research required).

 

[Dinwar]

- Early on, that seemed to me your (you guys') major reason for dismissing Rogers' paper. You guys didn't believe that Gonella supplied Rogers with the samples that Rogers claimed that Gonella did.

This deserves a closer look. See, I've taken samples before. Every time I do, I have to fill out a Chain of Custody, a legal document demonstrating who had control of the sample at what time. Without that document, the sample is meaningless. If there are gaps in that document, the sample is meaningless. Moreover, there are also things called custody seals--essentially strips of paper that are signed in such a way that the signiture must necessarily be destroyed in order to access the sample. If that custody seal is broken by anyone other than the person who signed the Chain of Custody, the sample is meaningless. In both cases the quality of the sample is irrelevant--it may be a perfectly fine sample, the seal may have been broken by an accidental jostling of the UPS truck or something (don't ask how many nights' worth of sleep I've lost over that one), and the sample would still be useless, because if the seal is broken or the COC is missing or has data gaps there is no way to prove that the sample in question is actually the sample that was taken from the system being sampled.

These are the requirements for sampling groundwater in EPA Region 9. Pretty basic stuff, the kind of thing that any geologist fresh out of school is expected to do as a mater of routine. You freak out the first time because of the horror stories you hear about people being sued over this sort of thing, then you just learn to do it almost without thinking about it. It becomes second nature.

What I want to know is, why do you expect us to accept a lower standard of evidence for this shroud that supposedly is the burial shroud of the Son of God than we do for a relatively minor groundwater sample?

See, that's not the way science works. In science, the more important something is the tighter the controls are. A paradigm-shifting idea must necessarily be demonstrated under the most harsh of conditions. Critical samples must be handled with extreme caution to ensure that even the harshest (honest) critics cannot contest their validity. The Vatican and the samplers who did the C14 dating recognized this, and established the best controls over sample provenance that I've ever heard of. You're trying to reverse this, however--you're trying to get us to accept a violation of the standard practices of science for, if you're correct, the most important find in the history of humanity.

And the solution to this is simple. Please provide the Chain of Custody that shows that Rogers had legitimate acces to the sample, and the channels by which he obtained that access. If you can't, the sample is meaningless EVEN IF IT CAME FROM THE SHROUD. If you CAN, any discussion of Rogers' honesty is irrelevant because he has legal proof that it's what he says it is.

Again, the issue here isn't Rogers' honesty. It's the provenance of the material he tested, and the validity of his tests--among other things, but you want to focus on Rogers for some reason and those are the major areas of contention with his work. Provenance cannot be established by mere hand-waving and saying "I don't see anything to suggest he's dishonest"; there are legal requirements backed up by a long history of general practices in the field that place specific requirements on the establishment of sample provenance, and those simply have not been met.

 

[Ladewig]

I am not trying to go out of order.
I am just kibitzing

I'll use purple for things that I do not expect to be formally addressed.

13) So.....in the 16th Century they knew how to weave fibers together such that any patch would be invisible? Is there any historical documentation of this being done on any other artifact?

I am pretty sure Jabba is going to win this one because we will not be able to prove there are not invisible patches on every ancient artifact.

ETA: actually if we ever get to this item we will have to add item 13b) why did the miraculous weavers repair a corner of the cloth but not repair the several damaged areas near the image itself?

 

[Dinwar]

I am pretty sure Jabba is going to win this one because we will not be able to prove there are not invisible patches on every ancient artifact.

You know, if he wants to call that reasoning a victory I'm tempted to let him. It's so sad that I'd almost feel bad ripping it apart.